Running STill
by 13opals
Summary: When The Doctor and the Ponds get stuck in an alternet universe, they think it's just 24 hours and then back through the hole. But when Torchwood is on the case, it complicates things. Especially when Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth, is waiting.


**AN: Heeeeeere it is! Bit later than normal, and the first chapter is basically the same, but, hey. **

"Roryyy!"

Amy Pond, no, Williams, came tearing down the halls of the enemy spaceship. Her husband came through the other way, and they nearly collided with each other.

"Where is he? Is he here? Did you see him?"

"I don't know, I thought he was chasing you!"

"Yeah, thanks-"Rory stopped as a shadow came up behind them. Slowly, the two turned. And sure enough, a giant robot gorilla was standing menacingly behind them, arm raised. Amy stepped into her husband's embrace and hid her head.

"Ahhhhh!"

And then a noise filled the ship.

How to describe it? Ah- the loveliest sound in the world. And the TARDIS materialized around them.

Rory slowly let go of his wife. It really was difficult getting used to this, and it had been over a year for him. But apparently not for Amy, as she was walking around, looking for their savior.

"Down here, Ponds!"

They looked down through the glass floor-Rory incredibly glad Amy wasn't wearing a skirt- and found their favorite alien under the TARDIS, working on something spacey-wacey.

"It's Williams!"

"No. It doesn't work that way."

"Yeah, yeah." Amy interrupted, sitting on the steps. "Doctor, what are you doing?"

"Well, it seems as if the TARDIS picked up a sort of hole in the Vortex, we're trying to avoid it-"

BOOM.

"Doctor!"

The lights is the control room had gone out.

"Is everyone okay? Amy!"

"I'm good. Could use a bit of a warning though."

"Rory? Rory!"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Fine. What just happened?"

"Hold it." The lights came back on. "There." The Doctor grinned and ran to his scanner.

"Ah, it looks like something tried teleporting directly into the TARDIS. But I had just raised the shields. They couldn't get in."

Amy, pulling herself up, looked at the Doctor. "Well, who was it?"

He smiled again.

"Who do you think?"

. . .

. . .

"Honestly, sweetie, how was I supposed to know the shields were up? You _never _have them up."

A half hour later, River Song was sitting with her family in the TARDIS. She had tried to teleport out of prison, for the express fact that, "One of the guards was annoying me, and I wanted a getaway. _You never answer your phone_."

River smiled. "Shall we do diaries, then?"

"Oh, yes, of course." Both time travelers pulled out small books from their pockets.

"Byzantium?"

"Oh, yes, ages ago. Pandorica?"

"We've done that…Demon's Run?"

"Yes. Silence?"

"200 years ago."

"How about Jim the Fish, I love him."

"Yes, I've got that, he's great."

"What about," River paused, looking at Amy and Rory. "Tesselecta? The second one, have you got that?"

They both knew she wasn't talking about River's regeneration.

"Yeah." The Doctor smiled.

"Oh, for once, we might actually be caught up!"

Amy was ecstatic. "You better call me mum now, I've missed it for this long."

River laughed. "Have you been making him call you that?"

"Ah, he won't listen to me…Oh, you should have seen Rory threatening him-"

Both men turned red. The Doctor walked to the controls and began flipping levers.

"You know something, River? When we picked you up, we were in this bit of the universe, I found a tiny rip." River walked over to him. "And it seems as if we're about to fall in-"

"Swee-"

And the TARDIS was falling, falling, through black nothingness. All four were forced to the floor, Amy and Rory screaming.

The Doctor struggled against gravity as he attempted to pull them back out. Eventually, he fell back against the floor, unable to resist.

Then it stopped. The light had seeped out of the room again. They were left in semi-darkness.

Rory helped Amy up. "Have we landed?" he asked.

The Doctor frowned. 'Landed, no. We seemed to have…crashed,"

"We fell through a hole in time." River whispered. She whipped around to face the Doctor. "Doctor, this isn't the first time, you told me…"

But the Doctor had already crossed over to the door and locked it. "It's better if we don't go outside. Who knows what could be out there." He walked to the control panel, scanning it for light. He then moved underneath and started looking.

"Just a bit of power…yes!" This time he had several still glowing circuits. "We can wait for them to charge up!"

River walked to the door.

"River, don't."

She looked hard at him. "Where's the fun in that?" River opened the door to sunlight and stepped out. Amy followed her immediately. When the Doctor tried to stop her, she gave him the _don't-mess-with-me-I'm-your-mother-in-law look_ he had become familiar with. Rory shrugged and exited with her. Muttering angrily, the Doctor left the TARDIS as well.

"London. Present day." River said to him.

The first thing the Doctor noticed was the absence of zeppelins. Filled up with false hope, his stepped into the light. Amy grinned. "I love London!"

"Woah, hold on, Pond." He said, quickly grabbing her arm. "This is a parallel universe, we have to be careful."

She rolled her eyes. "Okay. That's new. I'm going shopping in a parallel universe." She started walking away, dragging Rory with her. As they walked, Amy turned and yelled out," You too! You're paying, mister!"

Sighing, the Doctor started following her. River was laughing next to him.

"Well," he grumbled," Now I know where you get it from."

"Oh, sweetie, Amy is far too nice to be like me."

The four wandered aimlessly around the town. Amy, having far too much fun shopping in a parallel world, where the fashions were completely different, was dragging Rory to store after store.

River and the Doctor decided to have a date of sorts. Only, it was difficult having a date when your partner kept looking over his shoulder to make sure that a certain someone wasn't following him. They decided to go into a tea shop, a small café called The Golden Sun. As soon as the Doctor sat down River asked,"Alright, how close were you two?"

"What do you mean?"

"I've never seen you so nervous. Ever."

"It's not that, but, when I think about it, I'm being really silly. She won't even recognize me. And she's got the other me with her."

River's gaze softened.

"And, well, it's just so strange. I mean, what if she's not happy? And I left her here…"

"Sweetie, listen. 24 hours, that's it. You probably won't even see her."

Having settled that, the couple actually decided to have tea (Chamomile for River and Banana for the Doctor) and then meet up with Amy and Rory. Rory was barely recognizable from all the bags he was under. Amy looked positively cheerful. She ran up to River and began discussing the things she had bought.

The four were having a perfectly good time when a cry of, 'Move out!" was heard. About a dozen men and women in uniform appeared and ran at them. River reached for her blaster, bur was too late. Within seconds, they were surrounded. The leader of the group, a slightly short man with spiked hair removed his helmet. The Doctor nearly smiled. Jake had never looked better, even though he was pointing a gun a River.

"What are you?" He snarled.

Perhaps the Doctor's glee showed through, for suddenly, there were twelve guns pointing at him.

Jake glared at each of them. He then turned to a dark haired girl next to him. "Addy, where the hell –"

Addy sighed. "Commander was in Cardiff. Cut her some slack. Shareen phoned ahead, so did Owen. Any second now, we'll get orders."

And sure enough, in a few minutes of confused shouting, a helicopter flew low overhead, landing a bit away. Another team of scientists ran out, including one figure in the hit squad's uniform.

"Let me guess." The Doctor said. "Torchwood?"

"Got that right. If you know us, they you know what we can do to hostile aliens."

"Who said anything about hostile?" Amy countered. "And I'll have you know that I are completely human!" Under her breath, she murmured to the Doctor: "What's Torchwood?"

The scientists had all caught up by now. Slightly out of breath, they began setting up equipment.

"What are you doing? We're in broad daylight?" asked River.

"Oh, we cleared the area ages ago; didn't you notice all the shops close?"

They all turned to Amy, who blushed.

"Doesn't matter." Said the last uniformed woman. She took off her helmet and shook out short blond hair. "Guns down. Now."

The hit team all snapped to a salute. The woman sighed, and then turned to the Doctor.

"I keep saying, no salutes, but who listens? Addy, I said _guns down._"

The dark woman reluctantly lowered her gun.

She extended a hand.

"Hello, I'm Rose Tyler, now who the hell are you?"

. . .

. . .

John Nobel was in Torchwood 1 when he got a call from his fiance. He pulled out his phone, smiling at the ring tone. Using sound system, he had managed to recreate the sound of the TARDIS materializing.

"Hello?"

John had been working for Torchwood after a long argument with Rose. She wouldn't let him be a field agent, though. Rose had been taking the Doctor's request seriously, she wouldn't let him near any guns. At all.

"Yeah, I'm fine. New project. I'll check, alright? Two inches since November! Give her a few years, come on, Rose. New aliens? Really? Oh, London. So your not going on this run? Rose, you're in Cardiff. Wales. You can't just fly over. Oh, alright, maybe you can. I'll see you here, then. Love you, too."

He hung up, the went to check, as per Rose's instructions, the _special_ project they hard been working on. It was given the most security in Torchwood, and if they had been in the other universe, John would have feared for her safety. The room was completely bare except for a giant tank in which a scrap of coral floated.

_My TARDIS_

_"The Doctor and Rose Tyler, in the TARDIS. As it should be."_

John gasped and reeled back. That memory, no, that was **him**!

_"New aliens popped up...London, no idea how they got here...alright, I'm flying over...love you."_

That was him. He was here. And Rose was heading straight for him.

John nearly ran to the intercom. "Director!" he yelled into the phone.

Pete Tyler's voice came on. "What the bloody hell you yelling for?"

"Yeah, Pete, real eloquent, where's Rose?"

"Rose? Didn't she call ahead? New ali-"

"I know that bit, of course she called. Where in London?"

Pete gave an address. "Why? What's the problem?"

But John was already running.

. . .

. . .

Meanwhile, Rose had invited her aliens into a large truck, a makeshift base.

"Well!" she said cheerfully. "How 'bout a cuppa?"

River took charge. "Yes, that would be nice." Rose turned to a solider standing by the door.

"Five tea's please." Rose smiled at River. "I always think a bit of tea makes things better. Tea is seriously underrated. My old mum, you know, knew better. Never went to bed without that last cup of tea."

The Doctor, still a bit frozen, thawed a bit at the thought of Jackie. He remembered all they had done together. Then he winced.

"So," Rose said. "Names? Planets? You all look human, but-" she smiled softly, "-that isn't often the case.

River, oh, resourceful River Song, already pulled a cover story up and sold it completely. Apparently they were from the future, human colonies who had just discovered time travel. They were repopulating old planets.

"Oh, that's nice. Time travel's brilliant, isn't it?" Rose gave another smile. "I didn't get your names?"

"River Song."

"Amy Williams. This is my Rory." Amy grinned and patted Rory's arm.

"Yeah, hi, I'm Rory Williams."

The Doctor faltered. What should he say?

"John." He blurted. But what next? If he used 'Smith' on Rose...

"Song." It was River. "We're married."

Amy looked surprised, but he knew better to question her daughter. Rose looked quickly at The Doctor's wedding band, and checked River's hand. The Doctor nearly laughed. Still intelligent, then.

"John." she said slowly. "That's a nice name. So, where are you guys from?"

This was Rose. _Rose._

Only one thing could be said.

"Raxacoricofallapatorious."

The look on her face was worth it.


End file.
